Tag: financial

In 1307, the Knights Templar were rounded up, imprisoned and tortured under secret orders issued by the King of France. The trials of top Templars would last for years and lead to many being burnt at the stake including the last Grand Master, Jacques de Molay. He was incinerated in public in front of Notre Dame cathedral.

A string of scandalous accusations were made against the Knights Templar to justify smashing the order. I recommend Malcom Barber’s detailed account of The Trial of the Templars if you want to learn a lot more.

Here were some of the most noteworthy charges:

New entrants to the Templar order had to deny Christ, the Holy Virgin and the saints

Templars were told that Christ was a false prophet and there was no hope of receiving salvation through belief in him

Knights were ordered to spit on a crucifix and even urinate or trample on it

The order worshipped a head of some description, possibly that of a cat or with three faces or an idol called Baphomet

This idol was encircled with cords, which the Templars then wore around their waists

The Knights Templar rejected the sacraments of the Catholic church

It was thought that the Grand Master and other leading Templars could absolve sins even though they were laymen and not priests

New entrants were kissed on the mouth, the navel, the stomach, the buttocks and the spine and homosexuality was encouraged

The Templars were only interested in financial gain and pocketed donations for their own use

Chapter meetings and initiations were held in strictest secret with only Templars present and those that revealed any details to people outside of the order would be punished with imprisonment or death

A short film from the Smithsonian includes a reenactment of what the alleged initiation ritual looked like.

Did the Knights Templar make it much harder for the likes of Robin Hood to rob from the rich and give to the poor? Using the smart financial system devised by the Templars, the rich no longer had to lug caskets of loot around with them. Instead, they lodged some money with the Temple in, say, London and withdrew it in Acre or Tripoli, hundreds of miles away.

How on earth could they do this in the Middle Ages? The theory is it all came down to the use of secret codes on chits, understood at the other end. As a result, a knight going off on crusade didn’t have to drag sacks of money around. Thieves waiting by the roadside would now find that the potential pickings were markedly reduced.

Like all bankers, the Templars charged an administration fee and interest but somehow managed to avoid the opprobrium of the church with regards to engaging in usury – an activity that had been largely confined to the Jewish community. The term ‘cheque’ it’s been argued refers to the chequered board on which Templars settled their accounts.

The Templars were also able to move huge amounts of money around. For example when the king of France was captured and ransomed during one of the crusades, the ransom was paid off by the Templars because their ships stationed offshore were crammed with gold to pay for the crusader wars.